BOISE, Idaho (AP) — David Lunsford is an avid gun owner with a firing range on his Texas spread. With bump stocks about to be banned by the U.S. government, he grudgingly decided to sell off his and let someone else figure out what to do with them. "If I get caught with one, I'm a felon, and it seems like to me that's entrapment in the biggest way. I bought that thing legally with my hard-earned money," said the 60-year-old Lunsford, who has at one time owned six AR-15 rifles that he built from kits, as well as a World War II German submachine gun.
The bump stock — the attachment used by the killer during the 2017 Las Vegas massacre to make his weapons fire rapidly like machine guns — will become illegal on Tuesday in the only major gun restriction imposed by the federal government in the past few years, a period that has seen massacres in places like Las Vegas; Thousand Oaks, California; Sutherland Springs, Texas; and Orlando and Parkland, Florida.
Unlike with the decade-long assault weapons ban, the government isn't allowing existing owners to keep their bump stocks. They must be destroyed or turned over to authorities. And the government isn't offering any compensation for the devices, which can cost hundreds of dollars. Violators can face up to 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
Lunsford bought three bump stocks over the years and wanted to recoup at least some of the money he shelled out, but it bothers him that he and others have been put in this position.
"I've never committed a crime with it, and just because of that one killer up in Las Vegas that used one that killed a bunch of people, they're going to make people pay for it," he said.
But Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, said: "It was because of bump stocks that the gunman in Las Vegas was able to kill 58 people from a hotel window. ... It just goes to show the incredible lethality and dangers of these accessories."
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Poster Comment:
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